Author: Administrador

Glen Bickford “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was … Continue reading “The Gift of Silence: How I Lost a Vocal Cord and Found My Voice”

Jacob Myers “He who controls the pace, controls the victory.” Scrawled on a whiteboard in his office, we find Frank Campana’s training philosophy. Frank is a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) coach of some renown for his unorthodox training methods. Rather than employing the typical cadre of cacophonous heavy metal or rap beats to train his … Continue reading “Preaching That Flows”

Christian Piatt My first job in a church was as a music minister. I loved the senior pastor I served with, as did the congregation we faced every Sunday morning. He taught me a lot about worship, preaching and how to connect with people. One time we were at lunch, reflecting on the previous week’s … Continue reading “Preacher or False Prophet?”

Charlene Rachuy Cox I used to find it incredibly frustrating. The Sunday texts would be before me. I would diligently study them — analyze their historical context, tease out the challenges and possibilities within and between the texts, meticulously execute word studies, and while listening to the context of the community I served, seek to … Continue reading “Texts in Conversation: Preaching and Meaning”

Ron Allen It seems like a no-brainer. Yet preachers rarely seek direct input from listeners about how we might improve our preaching. What do people in the pews want from a sermon. A few years ago, a cadre of teachers of preaching sought to ask listeners what we could learn about preaching from them. We … Continue reading “Study Confirms and Challenges Preachers”

Susan Hedahl Welcome to the Sermonic Rhetorical Apps Shop!  Why visit? Two of the most famous early preachers of the Church — Augustine in the West and Chrysostom in the East — preached sermons that used a wide array of effective rhetorical apps. Rhetoric is the study of persuasive speech techniques. For millennia rhetoricians have … Continue reading “Rhetorical Apps”

Joy J. Moore Many sermons begin with a funny story or captivating movie image told right after the reading of Scripture. This is the hook — in homiletic technical speech — a way to capture the attention of listeners who have gathered from various quadrants of the community with a multiplicity of concerns ranging from … Continue reading “Preach Our Story, not Your Story”

Adam White It might seem that an article about silence for a preaching website would be a waste of time. But after a handful of experiences with the Taizé Community, I am beginning to wonder if silence isn’t exactly the waste of time preachers need. I recently went to the Taizé Pilgrimage of Trust in … Continue reading “Taizé, Silence and Preaching”

Melinda Quivik Advent’s themes, coming right from the Gospel texts for each of the season’s four Sundays — 1) Luke 21:25-36; 2) Luke 3:1-6, 3) Luke 3:7-18, and 4) Luke 1.39-45[46-55] — are not about preparing for Christmas, about consumerism, or about distractions that keep us from what is most important. Let Advent take us … Continue reading “Preaching Luke through Advent, Year C”

Catherine Robinson Back in the late Mesozoic era, when I was in seminary, my preaching professor told me, “You need to learn to write for the ear, not for the eye.” “Well, phooey!” I thought. “How do I do that?” So I kept plugging along, preparing the best sermons I could, and often feeling as … Continue reading “Sermons That Resound”